Examples (overall)

Question 1

“Have several old dresses from grandmother in beautiful condition”

Answer 1

Syntactic Ambiguity. Is the dresses in beautiful condition. Or is the grandmother in beautiful condition.

Question 2

“When he was asked to find the cube root of 27, he got the answer wrong, He simply wasn’t right about that. He was wrong, which means there was something wrong with him. You can see, this man is a flawed human being. “

Answer 2

Fallacy of Equivocation. Contains an argument.
wrong: “There is something wrong with him”
wrong: “making a mistake”
conclusion (false): This man is a flawed human being.

Question 3

“Nineteenth-century German thinkers drew a sharp distinction between civilization, which involved mechanics, technology, and material factors, and culture, which involved values, ideas, and the higher intellectual, artistic, moral qualities of a society. This distinction has persisted in German thought but has not been accepted elsewhere.”

Answer 3

NO Fallacy of Equivocation. Contains an argument.

civilization: many different meanings but are not confused with each other to disrupt the conclusion.

Question 4

“The idea of God exists, so God exists in my mind. therefore, God exists.”

Answer 4

Fallacy of Equivocation. Contains an argument.
God: referring something exists in the mind
God: referring something exists outside the mind.

Question 5

I want to have myself a merry little Christmas, but I refuse to do as the song suggests and make the yuletide gay. I don’t think sexual preference should have anything to do with enjoying the holiday.

Answer 5

Fallacy of Equivocation.

gay: means happy in this song, no homosexual

Question 6

Every Square has four straight sides

Answer 6

a priori to be true.
why: a person need only know the properties of a square to know the truth of this claim; no further empirical data is required

Question 7

Some people predict earthquakes on a grand scale for the west coast of North America during the years 2010-2016

Answer 7

not a priori.

why: needs empirical evidence to confirm. needs sources.

Question 8

Everyone who is a biological parent is legally responsible for the well being of at least one child.

Answer 8

not a priori true.

why: no connection between the biological fact and the legal fact
ex: 12 year old could be a biological parent, but because of her age not legal to parent.
ex: Those who have adopted children are the legal parents and not biological parents, these two concepts are distinct.

Question 9

A rolling stone gathers no moss

Answer 9

not a priori true.

why: common expression, whether taken literally or figuratively, would require empirical confirmation.

Question 10

(a) this book about nutrition has been on the best seller list for eight weeks
(b) this book about nutrition is scientifically accurate

Answer 10

not relevant.

the popularity of the book would not provide evidence of its scientific accuracy.

Question 11

Dreams have only one author at a time. That’s why dreams are lonely

Answer 11

The premise is that dreams have only one author at a time and the conclusion is that dreams are lonely. The premise is not relevant to the conclu- sion since the origin of dreams is one thing and the sense of whether or not one is lonely in one’s dreams is quite another thing.

Question 12

We should not blame the media for deteriorating moral standards. Newspapers and TV are like weather reporters who report the facts. We do not blame weather reports for telling us that the weather is bad.

Answer 12

Inductive Analogy.
relevance = not good.
weather reporters can not change the weather not matter what. Media can choose what they advertise to influence the people.

Question 13

Once a pleasant and friendly lady of the foothills, Calgary has become obese, 200 pound dame and naturally suffers from all the disease inherent to the distended community: smog breath, body odors, high traffic blood pressure, glandular dollarities, and skin blemishes such as high rises, towers, skyscrapers, and malls… It would be well to consider if this continual expansion of Alberta cities is really needed or just a competitive show off.

Answer 13

Inductive Analogy. Faulty Analogy.

analogue: obese dame to dispute the wisdom of the extending city.
- No serious demand for consistency between obesity people and size in cities.
- He stated no norm for a healthy city size.
- analogy provides no support for the author’s stance on the proposed subdivision.
- Provides no rational support for it.
- Analogy is simply a distraction.

Question 14

Nobody can be healthy without exercise, neither natural body nor politic; and certainly to a kingdom or estate, a just and honorable war is true exercise. A civil war, indeed is like the heat of a fever, but a fever of war is like the heat of exercise, and serveth to keep the body in healthy; for in slothful peace, both courage will effeminate and manners corrupt.

Answer 14

Inductive Analogy. Faulty Analogy.
loose similarity between the primary subject and the analogue.
no clear standard for health for the state.

Question 15

There’s not a thing wrong with what Roth did in front of 15,000 people. After all, don’t millions of people see worse stuff in front of the television every day?

Answer 15

Fallacy of Two wrongs Make a Right.
analogy: Roth’s performance and what people see on television.
claiming: Roth’s performance was not wrong, because it’s not worse then something else.
Something does not become right, because something similar is wrong.

Question 16

Freedom, in education as in other things, must be a matter of degree. Some freedoms cannot be tolerated. I met a lady once who maintained that no child should ever be forbidden to do anything, because a child ought to develop its nature from within. “How about if its nature leads it to swallow pins?” I asked; but I regret to say the answer was mere vituperation. And yet every child, left out itself, will sooner or later swallow pins, or drink poison our of medicine bottles, or fall our of an upper window, or otherwise bring itself to a bad end. At a slightly later age, boys, when they have the opportunity, will go unwashed, overeat, smoke till they are sick, catch chills from sitting in wet feet, and so on – let alone the fact that they will amuse themselves by plaguing elderly gentlemen, who may not all have Elisha’s powers of repartee. Therefore, one who advocates freedom in education cannot mean the children should do exactly as they please all day long. An element of discipline and authority must exist.

Answer 16

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